newbie requiring help

[jonah1976]

Hi All,

Just came across from the nikon D750 (great camera by the way but obviously outdated nowadays). my new XT-4 is fantastic for landscapes and static photography but once things start moving it just doesn't cut it, I have taken multiple pics of my dogs running all over from left to right and front to back and out of say 30 frames i'm lucky if i will get 3 or 4 in focus, i am set to continuous tracking and zonal focus but its just not happening. Can anybody help with the settings please for action photography. i am using the 16-80 and the 55-200 x lenses. Thanks

[Herco]

Hi and welcome to Fuji 😉

I'm not so sure about the D750 being outdated and so... It is still a great camera used by lots of professionals as well. To be really honest even today's best mirrorless cameras re. auto-focus like Sony's A7RIV and A9II are still not as good in AF as the best DSLRs (among which I also count the D750 and D810).

Fuji's AF has become quite good in the latest generations but there are a few caveats. First, your 16-80 lens is a recent design with fast AF performance. The 55-200 however, is a bit older and is fine at best re. AF. So, your best results will probably be with the 16-80. The f4 limitation of that lens however, will limit the low light AF performance of the X-T4 a bit.

The X-T4 offers various tweaks to adjust AF to the circumstances. This is a bit cumbersome as it is not really good in auto detecting the required setting. You will have to do that for the camera. You can designate some options to function buttons on the camera for future quick access.

Here's my recommendation:

• Set the AF mode to AF-C (front of camera).
• In the menu 'SHOOTING' and sub-menu 'AF/MF Settings' select mode 5 in the AF-C Custom Settings. This is for erratically moving subjects. This sets the tracking sensitivity to a locked-on mode, the tracking speed to the quickest and the zone area to auto (as the dogs move back and forth). It is a good starting point for further tweaking. Once you've find the best setting you can store that under custom AF-C mode (mode 6).
• Then make sure that the number of focus points is set at 425 for the widest coverage of focus points unless you follow the dogs with the camera and keep them center-frame.
• Switch Pre-AF on. This speeds up the focusing process when you half-press the shutter release button.
• Unfortunately the X-T4 doesn't recognize animal eyes, so face-AF and eye-AF doesn't help here. Best to switch that off and prevent the camera from scanning for faces/eyes. I've seen the X-T3/4 recognizing faces while they were not there (in shapes of leafs and so).

You may also want to test release/focus priority. With focus priority usually you have the best hit rate for in-focus shots, however, it may also result to your camera when losing track of the subject instead refocus on a different subject. I'd recommend release priority in that case. You may have more shots out-of-focus, but at least more to choose from as well.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Herco